Revolution turns the tables on Houston

From the 18th minute tonight, when Nate Jaqua scored against the Revolution to go up 1-0, it just felt wrong. What business does the Dynamo have leading New England in a championship game?

In MLS Cup ’06 at Frisco, Houston went down in the 2nd overtime to the Revolution before Brian Ching pulled back a miracle goal to send the game to penalties, which Houston won. In the 2007 MLS Cup, the Revolution again went ahead 1-0, before the Dynamo came back with two 2nd-half goals to win the cup for a 2nd straight year.

In fact, for all the talk of the Dynamo’s domination of the Revolution, in the eight matches (750 minutes played) in the two teams’ history before tonight, Houston has led New England for a total of 21 minutes (for 5 minutes in a 2007 regular season 3-3 tie, and for 16 minutes in MLS Cup 2007). If you were to go back in time and randomly watch any moment of any Dynamo-Revolution game in history, you’d be as likely to find the Dynamo ahead on the scoreboard as you would to correctly pick a single number on a roulette wheel.

So the Dynamo’s first-half lead tonight in the SuperLiga final was both exhilarating, surprising–and a little worrisome: would we be able to protect this rarest of things: an early-game lead? As you all know now, we could not protect that early lead, nor the 2-1 lead in extra time. Houston lost the SuperLiga trophy to the Revolution on penalties after a 2-2 tie (1-1 after regulation).

This final was an incredibly entertaining game that anyone watching should feel glad to have seen. There were so many oohs and aahs at the game-watching party at our house tonight my dogs wouldn’t stop barking at us humans. There were a total of 40 shots taken between the two teams, over half of them on goal–and that doesn’t begin to cover all the other chances not in the stats: the crosses floating through the goal area, the well-timed interceptions of passes near the goal, and the would-be shots that just weren’t ripe enough to get off the attackers’ feet. If you add in the heart-pounding excitement of the always-unfair penalty shootout, and this amounted to some real sporting entertainment.

Houston, for once, really did outplay New England tonight. In the last hour of the match or so, the Dynamo spent most of the time in the Revolution half and created more of the chances. Both teams had lots of really good opportunities they couldn’t convert on–but Houston had more. Several goalmouth scrambles left us Dynamo fans gasping and wondering how in the world Matt Reis was spared from collecting the ball out of his own net.

Some of the problem was a resurgence in the Dynamo’s inability to score when given the chance. But a lot of it was the Revolution defense’s tightening down so as to make those opportunities just difficult enough to require actual marksmanship to score on. And of course, Matt Reis pulled out enough heroics to save some of the attempts that other goalkeepers might have allowed.

A cynic might argue that all the goals tonight were the result more of defensive lapses than offensive brilliance. Sure, Nate Jaqua’s first goal was pure poaching, pouncing on a New England mistake like a buzzard over roadkill armadillo. Wade Barrett will surely re-live his decision to allow that ball to bounce through to Steve Ralston’s aimed and cocked right leg. And Matt Reis may even have second thoughts about how he played the cross to Kei Kamara in overtime that allowed Houston’s 2nd goal.

Still, all of the goals were outstanding in how they were clinically finished, despite the dubious way the opportunity was handed to the scoring team. To me, there’s joy in soccer in seeing a goal skillfully put away when it’s a professional-grade punishment of a defensive mistake. When Jaqua scored tonight, it was surely only because Igwe made a boneheaded mistake that gave Nate the ball; but Jaqua’s one-touch finish is something that many MLS players (including those on his new team) might have trouble putting away as often as they should. Usually, an assassin-like opportunistic goal scored is way better than the beautifully set-up goal that never gets finished off.

It’s almost not worth discussing the penalty shootout. Not everybody will make their kick, so somebody has to lose. Even the best in the world miss (see Roberto Baggio). Shootouts are thrilling, but I still think they’re a blight on the sport and I hate that we have to resort to this to get a winner of a tournament.

New England Revolution deserves the congratulations of a game well-played and a victory earned. They defied their reputation and put on a great show. The Revs bounced back from deficits twice, and then again from being behind in penalties. For them to win tonight showed as much heart as the Dynamo showed in beating them the past two MLS Cups.

And the Dynamo should be proud for bringing the game hard to the Revolution–on the road and after only two off days since the Columbus game. Not that anyone needed proof of it, but this game had nothing to do with winning the (paltry) prize money that MLS was offering the players–it was all about trying to bring home a SuperLiga trophy.

We can only hope for something this good at MLS Cup 2008. And, despite the wailing and moaning around much of MLS fandom, I hope we get a similar treat during SuperLiga 2009.

Final note:

The attendance at Gillette Stadium stunk. It seemed a foregone conclusion even by Revolution fans in the buildup to this SuperLiga final that it would be terrible, and there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Houston would have brought more fanaticos to Robertson Stadium than the 9242 in Foxborough tonight, probably even in the aftermath of Edouard. But even with that small number, the New England fans in attendance looked and sounded good on TV.

Moreover, the Dynamo fans at the game just made all the Dynamo fans stuck here in town proud. Many of them were very clearly visible in the second deck over a corner of the field at Gillette with a “Texian Army” banner hanging down. I raise a glass for the guys and gals making the trip up to wear the Orange.

6 Responses

yes, for me the “Men of the Match” were the Texian Army. Imagine traveling 2,000 miles to a game when you can’t even get 10,000 people from the six STATE area to come to see their home town team play in a Final.

a very exciting game for sure. There were equally brilliant periods of possesion and dominance by both teams and our two goals were very well played. Nate and Kai have confirmed to me that they were excellent additions to the team. besides their goals they also made plenty of effective runs at goal. We definitely have the mix right and we’re starting to gel at the right point in the season to make a run at our third title. Now, if we can just learn to take PKs by running up on the ball and blasting it. I much rather they totally miss a hard shot than to get cute and try to ease one in like Ralston’s shot to start the PKs.

Hats off to the Orange in the stands. The guy that wears the big orange mariachi hat is my hero.

Wow a great game – end to end – Joseph ran it for the NER and De Ro and Clark were invisible in midfield. Nice with our subs at the end to try and break thru. Man I wish our #25 would have slammed his PK shootout.

Houston would have been a tremendous host for a Final. We have played in 3 Cup Finals and won 2 of ’em but never at home.

Out of the 5 trophies up for grabs we are now out of the CCC, the USOC, SuperLiga and it is down to the Supporters Shield and a run at defending our title again. The CCL starts soon but will end next April so that will be a stretch as well. DALE DYNAMO!!!

[LH: As good a team as we have had the last 30 months, it is disappointing we haven’t pulled in any hardware except for 2 MLS Cups (and a couple of cannons). Of course, that’s a nice, huge exception! The 2008 Supporters’ Shield will be a tall order for sure, but I am really looking forward to seeing how the Champions League plays out.]

Spot on Lark. Never taking ANYTHING away from the two MLS Cup titles but it is important to solidfy a pro soccer team’s place in their region buy doing things beyond their domestic scope of play. We didn’t even make a run at the USOC in this period of Houston’s MLS success to stake a claim as a “double winning side” ya know Lark.

Take Real Madrid as of lately, two La Liga titles recently but no Champions League success and thus their own media and Euro football chat doesn’t rate the side like they do with ManU, Chelsea, Milan or even Liverpool who don’t do well in EPL play but turn up money in the CL and that earns massive respect. I’m focusing heavily on the Sept. thru October stretch for DeRo and the guys, it will get very tough to repeat with the CCL and knowing this ahead of time dare we think of a trophyless season here in Houston! C’MON BOYS! DALE DYNAMO!!!

i watched this game at a bar in Amsterdam. i’d just like to point out that this is the second time in as many months that the team i root for actually won on PKs. (the first took out Italy in the EuroCup.) clearly my 10-year curse is at an end.

i tip my hat to Houston – that was a FANTASTIC game. now i’m going to go sacrifice a small goat and light another 8 million candles to the shrine to Matt Reis that i keep in my hallway.